Many boats, such as sport boats, have at least a portion of the deck which is opened. This means that the opened portions of the deck are not protected from rain by a cabin having a roof for example. For this reason, many boat owners use a flexible cover to cover the opened portions of the deck when their boats are docked or placed in storage to prevent rain water from pooling inside the opened deck portions and to prevent the deck from becoming dirty.
The flexible covers are typically made of canvas that is treated to be impermeable to water. To install the flexible cover, a person installing the cover, while being inside the boat, first connects the flexible cover to one side of the deck. The cover is then extended over the opened portions of the deck, and the person installing the cover, who is now outside the boat, finally connects the flexible cover to the other side of the deck.
Since the cover is flexible, it is likely to sag in some places, which results in rain water pooling in these places on the cover. In order to minimize the size and number of places where water can pool on the flexible cover, removable poles are sometimes used to tension the cover. However, because they are made to tension the flexible cover, these poles make it more difficult to connect the flexible cover to the second side of the deck. The use of such poles also complicates the installation of the cover and may prove cumbersome to some people. Also, these poles may require the addition of hardware on the floor of the deck to hold the poles, and people walking on the deck may hit their feet on this hardware.
Also, some boats are provided with towers. The towers may be used, for example, to provide a top for making shade on the deck, to provide a platform on which a person can stand, or to provide a structure to tow a water skier or wakeboarder. A tower may also provide more than one of these functions. However, these towers complicate the installation of a flexible cover, since the cover needs to go around the legs of the tower in order to properly prevent the entry of rain water on the deck.
Therefore, there is a need for a boat coverable by a flexible cover that reduces the likelihood of rain water from pooling on the flexible cover.
There is also a need for a boat having a tower that can relatively easily be covered by a flexible cover.